


Cold Beyond the Stars

by Morbane



Category: Star Stealing Prince
Genre: Cold Weather, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Failed Sacrifice, Gen, Mission Failure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: A third ending.





	Cold Beyond the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [straightforwardly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/gifts).



It had taken days for Richard and Vera and their helpers, and the limited efforts of the townspeople, to prepare the ship to sail. Astra had never even seen a ship before, let alone travelled on one, but it made sense to her that a construction that had been abandoned for twenty years needed some work before they could trust themselves to it on a long journey.

"We put preservation spells on it, of course," Richard said, "but..." He rubbed his chin, and turned back towards the ship. Astra didn't need him to finish his sentence to know that the spells had not lived up to his hopes.

It was a worry in the back of her mind even when Richard announced that it was time to board - temporarily banished by the Original King's attack, during which nothing mattered but keeping him away from the ship - but it flickered back into life again when she and her guardians and Snowe finally stepped on to the ship. They had won against the Original King and they had secured their freedom - but they were almost too tired to enjoy the feeling of victory.

The ship moved slowly out of the cavern, Vera and her helpers coaxing the engines into first sputtering, then steady life. Slow, but sure, Astra told herself. They didn't want to crash the ship before getting out into clear space, and every inch they travelled still _was_ an inch away from the Original King... She found a bunk for herself, and even though she thought she'd be too keyed up from the battle to relax immediately, the engines had a reassuring purr to them, and she slept.

When she woke, Erio was asleep in the bunk across from her. Not the first time, she wondered what _he_ dreamed about. Their dream-sharing had only ever gone one way.

She went to the little window and pulled back the curtain. To her disappointment, it was still dark outside. For a moment, she hoped that it was the dark of night, not the cavern, and they were on the open sea - but everything was too still, too close. She and Erio and Hiante had seen the sea before. Surely it would be choppier? And she could make out neither the real stars nor the horizon. Maybe the clouds above were too dense... Sabine had often been blanketed with clouds... But then light from the ship glinted off something smooth and shining in the rocky sides of the cavern, and she sighed.

Erio shifted behind her.

"We're still underground," she said, trying to say it matter-of-factly.

Erio laughed. "You've been in a tower for most of your life, and now that you're on a _boat_ you have itchy feet?"

When he put it that way, it sounded silly, and she smiled, grateful to him. "I just want to be away from the Original King's lands," she said.

"Me too," he said, serious now. 

She started gathering her outer garments, preparing to dive below the blankets on the bunk and dress properly there - even if Erio laughed more. He held up an extra coat. "It's still getting colder," he pointed out, and she wished he were instead teasing her again.

When they went up to the deck, the lanterns were dimmed, and at first Astra wondered why - and then she saw it. Far ahead of them, light glimmered. Daylight again at last.

However, the light foretokened nothing good.

In the cavern, with rock and earth and tree roots between them and Sabine's blanket of snow, the underground river had flowed sluggish but steady. Richard told them that while they had slept, little had fouled their oars and it had not been difficult to use magic to keep the ship from heading into the cavern walls.

But now, although they drew closer to the open bay, and the ocean, the way was not clear.

As the ship moved, thin sheets of ice broken on the surface caused a chiming, clashing sound that lost its music as the sheets grew thicker. Ice blocked the mouth of the cavern - solid from bank to bank, with a dull translucence that hinted at how far down it extended. They could not see how far. It was light reflected off the ice that lit their way.

Astra shivered. So did Snowe, standing quietly at the prow, staring onwards in worry.

Richard lifted his hands and the magic driving the ship onwards died down. For a moment, those on the prow looked in silence at the obstacle to their way.

"I'll see how far it goes," Relenia said with a firm nod. She leaned over the side of the ship and pointed her spear. Magic flowed down her spear, solidifying the ice below. After a moment, she nodded, and jumped lightly down to the landing platform she had made for herself. Her spear held ahead of her as if to dowse out what ice was safe to stand on, she began to lightly jog to the cavern's mouth.

It was several hours before she returned.

"It goes out a mile into the bay," she said grimly. "Under all that snow, I wouldn't even know I was walking on ice above water, if not for my magic."

Snowe, Astra, Richard, Vera, Erio, and Hiante exchanged worried looks. 

"I could try melting it with my fire," Snowe said.

More worried looks. Snowe didn't look very confident himself. Astra thought that he looked particularly frail against the glimmering light of the cavern mouth, even though it obscured the shadows under his eyes.

Relenia pursed her lips. "If you melt the ice and it freezes again," she said cautiously, "it'll freeze harder. I think you should go a ways away from the ship, and unfreeze a patch, and we'll try to break through the ice so the ship can reach you."

Snowe nodded. She helped him down.

Astra's lightning magic wasn't very useful here, but she stood by to help Hiante use his earth magic to splinter the ice where he could.

Snowe and Relenia went ahead. "Go!" Richard called from the ship, and Snowe unleashed a great billow of fire. Astra looked away just in time, but afterimages danced in her eyes.

It took over an hour to get the ship to move twice its length, and they weren't quite up to where Snowe had melted through the patch.

"We'll try again tomorrow," Richard suggested, but Astra wasn't sure. She and Erio could see how tired Snowe was - and how little sleep had helped him lately. It was clear that his strength would fail long before they even reached the bay. Snowe nodded, and Astra reached out to squeeze his hand quickly. She had no more words than he did.

She winced back from touching him, and tried to hide it. Her hand stung. She looked again at Snowe, and saw that the outlines of his face and hands were blurry, the subtlest of flames dancing around them, as though it was his only way of keeping warm. For a moment, she wanted to touch him again and feel that warmth, despite the sting.

The next day, he did actually look better. Astra remembered that Erio had helped Snowe with his dreams just before they'd boarded the ship. Maybe it was working. She allowed herself to hope as he and Relenia went out to the ice again. If only someone else among them had fire magic... She prepared her own magic. Again, they shook and battered and splintered the ice. Again, the ship moved a few measures of its own length towards the cavern opening. They were so close - Astra longed to reach her hand out and up to the sky.

And feel snowflakes, perhaps. When she looked through the spyglass in the captain's cabin, she could see that the weather in the bay was not clear at all.

When she woke up the next morning, Snowe had already set out, and the usual crowd was watching him from the prow. Something seemed wrong to Astra. It was hard to think in the deepening cold. Then she had it - he was carrying something under his cloak, something that made a bulky shape against his side.

"Erio," she said. "What's wrong?"

He smiled at her, but not one of his kind smiles - something cynical and sharp, something only for Snowe. "He's trying something else."

Snowe was out on the ice of the bay, now, and even before he called up his flames he was hard to pick out against the dazzling light. The clouds must have cleared.

A shaft of light struck him, or perhaps it reached up from him, all the way to - or from - the sky. It was purest light and flame, and Astra could feel the strength of the magic concentrating and building. Horror-struck, biting her tongue, she anticipated an explosion - and then it winked out, silently, forcelessly, and when her eyes cleared again, there was only Snowe's crumpled form on the ice, and no flame at all.

"Damnit," Erio hissed beside her.

"Erio, what happened? What was supposed to happen?"

An uncomfortable shrug. "He took the bag of stars. I think he had a vision when he was taking them down."

Astra understood. She felt as though she should have understood hours ago. Days ago. "He was trying to sacrifice himself."

"But it didn't work."

"Don't sound so disappointed!" Astra said, shocked.

Erio looked up at her, angry, opened his mouth, and then forcibly bit back his words.

"Why didn't it work?"

Erio shrugged, uncomfortable. "After Lorel... I don't think there was enough of Snowe _to_ sacrifice."

"Oh."

A series of thumps - Relenia and Hiante had climbed over the side of the boat. In their haste, Relenia had jumped onto Hiante's back, so that with his tireless skeleton magic, he could carry her, and she could save her strength for ice magic. They raced off towards Snowe.

Astra said, "Has he been dead all this time? Should we... tell him?"

Erio shrugged again. "I'm not sure what difference it makes." Then he looked ashamed of himself for being so bleak. But for once, she didn't mind. He was right.

If Snowe couldn't melt the ice, they were all the same, really - clinging to life only a little longer, on a boat that might as well be flotsam on the sea, but had not yet managed to escape the island's grasp. Phantom or living being - the lines seemed to blur together. If they couldn't leave, they would die here; Snowe's fire would only keep them alive a little longer, and when it was gone, they would all go, like a magic candle finally put out.


End file.
